Semester One - Year Two - Summary of Final Works

Out of all my final works this semester, these 3 works from projects 2,3 and 5, to me are my most complete and successful works.

Project 05 - Getaway

Getaway - Oliver Lodge from Oliver Lodge on Vimeo.
Made as a take on Narrative, wordplay and animated Idents, First real attempt at animation, a 3 week project.
(was also made in Steroscopic 3D and exhibited as such)

Project 03 - Olveston

Projection Based Project at Olveston House from Oliver Lodge on Vimeo.
A Projection based work looking at objects and memories.

and

Project 02 - Landscape

Beautiful Otago from Oliver Lodge on Vimeo.
Footage of mainly the Middlemarch area, with brief glimpses of Wanaka and Tunnel Beach just outside Dunedin.

Overall I am happy with what I have accomplished, in both video works and animation, and hope to accomplish much much more next semester.

Project 05 - Getaway - Final Work

After a lot of hours and hard work I have a Final rendered animation, while there is still a lot that could be improved, I still accomplished my goal, of successfully finishing an animation.

This works is looking at narrative and the influence of text, while roughly basing the aesthetic and concept around animated 'idents' (eg, Pixars 'lamp' intro).


Getaway - Oliver Lodge from Oliver Lodge on Vimeo.
Made as a take on Narrative, wordplay and animated Idents, First real attempt at animation, a 3 week project.
(was also made in Steroscopic 3D and exhibited as such)

This work entitled 'Getaway' was exhibited in Steroscopic 3D on my own 3D monitor, at the Athenaeum in the Octagon. The setup worked well, many people seemed to enjoy the work, although the monitor provided a rather restricted angle of view and as the animation took place in front of the screen (effectively), a few people found it hard to adjust their eyes.

Overall I think this Final work was a success, and am very pleased with the final result.

Project 05 - Development Work

Here are a bunch of screenshots taken in Autodesk Maya, throughout various stages of the animation process.

These are just to give some idea of my workflow,

Through this project of I have developed many new skills and have been able to work through the process of, character creation, modelling, rigging, skinning, animating and rendering.

on this 3 week project I would estimate at least 80 hours working including research, and my slow and steady learning workflow.

Project 05 - My own 3D 2D images

Having Looked at the work of Steroscopic Artist, Neil Nathanson, I came up with my own images that can be veiwed in 3D Using the crossveiwing technique.

Here are a couple I made to trial it out, - the technique of crossing viewing, which is essentially just crossing your eyes and hoping it focus's on a single object in the middle, is one that takes some time to get right. having been playing around with 3D for a while, I can focus very quickly using this technique while others cannot at all, or at least find the technique rather difficult.

Project 05 - Research - self portraits

CG Rendering - Self Portrait "Grimace" from Alexandre Melquiond on Vimeo.


Self Portrait by Damian Aimers

Self Portrait by Kris Kaufman

Project 05 - Research - seeing 3D from 2D

While mucking around with 3D I got looking into the illusion of 3d in a 2d image. using a cross-veiwing method to make a 2D image seem 3D. pretty much going cross

In researching this I came across Neil Nathanson - stereoscopic artist

http://www.neilnathanson.com/3D02/index.html

here is some of his work

Using this methed I have created my own images for fridays presentation.

Project 05 - Research

As mentioned earlier, I have looked at some basic intro animations, here are a few that are very well known.

Others include 20th century fox, universal studios etc.

here's another cool one from Pixar, from the movie Wall-E

Project 5 - bringing in narrative/ Getaway

I have always been interested in narrative, and with my animation I want there to be at least a vague sense of narrative.

To help with the narrative I have come up with a name so my so called animation 'brand'. Getaway animation, Getaway being the predominant word, this gives a sense of what might be happening with the small amount of animation that there is. hopefully it will allow me to have a little fun.

here's the logo.

Project 05 - My Character

Making this character, I in some ways looked at it as some kind of self portrait, basing the clothing and hair on myself, This character was a very rushing make, so in the end doesn't really look like me at all, except for maybe the shoes.

here are some posed shots after rigging and skinning.

 here's a still from the early stages of animation.

Here's a couple of amusing images of my character after he was rigged but before he was skinned.

Project 05 - Imagination

This is the project I have been waiting for, Finally I can do some Animation.
After looking at digital communities and looking at the way people advertise themselves, I noticed lots of people on YouTube have their own little intro or logo especially people who make a lot of videos.
which got me thinking of the intros of TV shows and movies such as Pixar Animation, Dreamworks, Bad Robot, My thoughts is I could do something where I pick a work and loosely base an animation around that. I also want to work with steroscopic 3D as I have recently bought myself a 3D monitor and would like to work with that.

I am still pretty much an amateur with animation, so as well as a project this will be a big learning experience. I have sculpted figures but never have I properly clothed them, rigged them or animated them.
For basic aesthetic, i will set up the animation like a lighting studio. as 3 weeks is not long enough to create any other form of background aswell as an animted character. I think I'm going to be pushing it as it is.

Project 04 - Photographing Association - Cultures, Connections

This project was supposed to be the projected designed for me, as we were told it revolved around video and sound. It wasn't quite what I hope or expected. we were asked to make a blog about responding to different types of social networking and digital communities.

Michael seemed to want everyone's project to revolve around games and even called the project 'After Second Life'. "Second Life" being an online networking game where you can literally live a 'Second 'Life'. But once again I decided really to do my own thing and incorporated my own work into it, although im not sure if its all that relevant.

Here's the link to the After Second Life blog... http://oliverlodgeaftersecondlife.blogspot.co.nz/

Project 02 - Revised

Here I have taken into account the feedback from my critique, and have come up with a revised version of my Final video. I feel much more satisfied with this version and have uploaded it to Vimeo.


Beautiful Otago from Oliver Lodge on Vimeo.
Footage of mainly the Middlemarch area, with brief glimpses of Wanaka and Tunnel Beach just outside Dunedin.

Project 03 - Memory - Things

Projection Based Project at Olveston House from Oliver Lodge on Vimeo.
A Projection based work looking at objects and memories.

Project 03 was our site specific project, based at Olveston House, once again the project revolved around photography so I came up with my own idea. I took reference photos of things in order to recreate them digitally.

In the Room we were working in there was a cabinet full of various different interesting objects. you could tell these objects were of importance, and could tell they had a history just by looking at them.
I wanted to make an CG version of each object but with less than 2 weeks for the entire project and my limited skill, I was forced to come up with something else.

In a workshop with Ted, I got the idea to use projection, I used a reference image that I had planned to project the contents of the wardrobe into the wardrobe, using one of the art schools full hd projectors.
Using this as the basis, I used some of the animation I had already made, along with other reference images to create my animated projection.

The original video was rather fast paced and after some feedback I extended the video and spread the animations further apart. making the video significantly longer.

The plan was to have the video constantly looping but due to technical difficulties with the media box on the day, I wasn't able to keep the video in constant loop. but while it did work, I feel the work as a whole was quite succsessful.

Project 03 Research

After getting the idea to do projection I had a look into projection art heres some great works that I found.

Projection art focus's a lot on site specific works and thats really what I tried to accomplish with this olveston project.

Project 02 - Photographing Sensation - Places

This project started with 3 days in Wanaka where we were able to get some great footage, I didn't really know where my project was heading at this point but I still got some great footage. At this point it seemed to me like everybody was looking at landscape, and with some of the great footage I got , I figured why not use it.

One of the videos I took in Wanaka was a great slow panning shot that simply took in the amazing landscape. I then decided to go out and get some more footage so I took a trip to Middlemarch to take some shot of the amazing rock formations and open seemingly lifeless barren landscape.
At another point I made a trip to Tunnel Beach and managed to get a few good shots.

Using all footage I had, I singled out the best and with the help of Adobe Premiere, and after deciding for music or no music, I went with no music, and managed to make myself  a finished video.  I'm definitely glad I went with no music as it took away from the sense of peace and calm I was trying to embody.

Project 01 - Resolved

For my final works I looked at the Idea of Creating a lifeless, seemingly emotionless character. with closed eyes and no hair, I tried to create realistic but obviously not real face. I then used Autodesk Maya to play with lighting and Photoshop to add simple backgrounds to try and convey emotion through feel of the image rather than the look on the face.

Project 01 - Research

For this project I begun looking into to digital 3D modelling artists and I found so many amazing works, here are just a couple of the many I found.

The Artist Himself - CG Artist: Piotr Wysocki

Portrait of Nicolas Cage - The Moment - CG Artist: Qian Xie

The works of these artists, among countless others from around the world, just goes to show the amount of realism that CG portraiture can achieve, at this point I lack the knowledge of how to technically achieve this realism, especially in things such as eyes and hair, so i'll have to make do with my current knowledge and do what I can.

Project 01 - Continued... 27th Feb

I have decided to use the footage I have taken and use it as a reference in creating some CG heads, on the digital sculpting program Autodesk Mudbox.

Autodesk Mudbox is a program used to digitally sculpt 3d models. starting with a basic shape you can sculpt and shape to your will, the level of detail only limited by the power of the computer and the sculptors ability.

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This is the Image I started with followed by an image of my resulting model.

After showing this work to the class and getting feed back, i'm still not quite sure where I am going with this project. The hairless CG model was called creepy, Its quite possible I'll play on that.

Project 01 - Photographing Emotion

In this project we are looking at emotion and using photography to capture emotion. we were asked to go out at capture some emotion. no really what I wanted to do but I got some footage of my flatmates and friends and tried to capture emotion.

As you can see from the video no one was really that keen to take part, a lot of 'forced emotion' with brief glimpses of the real thing. not really sure where I want to go from here but I want to at least try bring in something relevant to my preferred practice...

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The Project

This Semester is one big project, that consists of 5 smaller projects. here they are as listed.

1.  Photographing Emotion - People, Communities, Ethics - Weeks 1-3
2.  Photographing Sensation - Places, Systems - Weeks 4-6
3.  Photographing Memory - Things, Change - Weeks 7 -8
4.  Photographing Association - Cultures, Connections - Weeks 9-11
5.  Photographing Imagination (Self Initiated project) - Weeks 12-14

The one thing in common with all of these and first thing I noticed about this was the word "Photographing" stamped at the beginning, and the second thing I noticed was that all these projects were at most 3 weeks long.

Over the summer, mucking around with the most basic things in CG I know that 3 weeks is not enough time to accomplish much. I really don't know what I'm going to do.

Welcome To My Blog - Me and My Expectations

Hi I am Oliver Lodge and as of 2013 I am studying 2nd Year Visual Arts majoring in Electronic Arts at the Dunedin School of Art. Electronic Arts describes a broad range but for me, my aim in this course is work with CG animation and video and gain skills and appreciation of the practice.

By the end of this degree I want to have successfully (at least successful to myself) have a fully realized CG animation as an artist rather than professional animator and as a student at an art school rather than an animation school I want to bring a certain beauty to my work.

I came to this particular school as the websites Electronic Arts preview video, showed glimpses of CG animation and also my interest in painting. In the first year myself as well several others were let down, in terms of Electronic Arts as we learnt that animation wasn't actually taught. After the first semester I was ready to leave, but due to several factors I decided to see out the year.
 In the 6 week run at Electronics Arts in second semester, once again we did not do animation, I was disappointed but was able to use video to create narrative, and in 6 weeks was able to create what I felt was a successful and enjoyable project. and I was told that second year would allow me to broaden to palette, and to me that meant animation, and then decided to see out the degree.

Coming into second year I am the only student in my year to major in electronic arts and so have been put with the photography students due to obvious crossovers between the still image and the moving image.
It is hard to say how I feel about it all, I am glad I have peers, but the fact that I am the only Electronic arts student means that I am singled out, and I really really hope that I am not dragged around and limited by what is best for the photography students.